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By William Glaberson A federal judge in Brooklyn yesterday struck down a controversial restriction on federally financed lawyers for the poor in the latest chapter of a decade-long battle over curbs on them. The rule involved in yesterday's decision dates from Newt Gingrich's tenure as speaker of the House of Representatives in the mid-1990's. It was one of a series of measures aimed at reining in poverty lawyers, whose critics claimed they used lawsuits to tie in knots the same federal government that paid their salaries. The decision by Judge Frederic Block of United States District Court struck down a federal agency's rule that declared that federally financed poverty law programs that used money from other sources to handle certain types of cases barred by Congress had to maintain a separate office to do so. Judge Block said the rule violated the free-speech guarantee of the First Amendment. "There is simply no legitimate justification for requiring duplication of costs," Judge Block wrote. Under a 1996 law, federally financed poverty law offices were barred, for example, from representing prisoners, or handling class-action suits and many types of cases involving immigrants. They were also barred from challenging the 1996 national welfare reform legislation. Advocates for the poor portrayed the decision yesterday as a victory that will permit poverty law offices nationwide to operate more efficiently. "Judge Block's decision removes much of the sting from the Gingrich rules," said Burt Neuborne, legal director of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, which handled the case on behalf of three New York legal services organizations. Poverty lawyers have long argued that the "separate facilities" rule was a method of hobbling them in aggressive representation of poor people. Poverty-law programs often have meager resources and they argued that setting up separate offices was not practical. The programs affected by yesterday's ruling receive grants from the federal government's Legal Services Corporation to provide free legal representation to poor people in civil cases. Stephen L. Ascher, a lawyer at Kronish, Lieb, Weiner & Hellman in New York who argued the case for the Legal Services Corporation, said yesterday that the agency had promulgated rules aimed at trying to put into effect Congressional goals concerning the poverty law program. Particularly since the mid-1990's, when their federal funds were cut sharply, such programs often raise large amounts of their budgets from other sources. City and state governments and private donors, Mr. Neuborne said, often provide about half the funding. It was not clear yesterday if the government would appeal. Legal representation to people who cannot afford to hire lawyers in criminal cases was not affected by yesterday's ruling. Court-appointed defense lawyers are paid separately, often by city or state governments. The restrictions that some lawyers call the "Gingrich rules" were controversial from the start and the legal dispute over them has already been to the United States Supreme Court. In a 2001 decision, a 5-to-4 majority ruled that Congress violated the First Amendment when it tried to bar the poverty lawyers from challenging welfare laws. That restriction "distorts the legal system by altering the traditional role of the attorneys," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. Judge Block was interpreting the Supreme Court decision in reviewing several restrictions dating from that period. In yesterday's decision, he declined to strike down the rule barring federally financed poverty lawyers from filing class action suits. Lawyers for the Legal Services Corporation had argued that Congress did not intend to limit political expression. Instead, they argued, Congress wanted to assure that money spent on legal representation went to addressing the needs of individual clients, like landlord-tenant battles to keep people from becoming homeless. "In light of this legislative intent," Judge Block ruled, "the court cannot conclude that the class- action restriction is unreasonable." But, when considering the rule requiring separate offices, he held that poverty law offices could comply with the law by keeping careful records and otherwise assuring that federal money be spent only on authorized cases. He issued an injunction barring the federal government from withholding funds from poverty law programs that use separate funds for cases they are not permitted to handle with federal funds.
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A Feast
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